E Coli in Water (bit of an emergency)

[lithe]

I hope this isn't a stupid question but my town just placed a warning out not to drink our tap water till at least Monday. It's Saturday now and I haven't done a water change in my tanks for about 3 days. Read levels and they are too high. Nitrites in one tank are very high. I have water boiled, but obviously, it's going to take a whole day to cool that water to tank temperature.

Does anyone know if water potentially containing E coli is harmful to fish? I don't want to sicken my fish or sicken myself in the future either. As of right now, I'm about to dump a dose of ammoquell in the tanks to make sure the levels start dropping rather than rising! Any help is super appreciated right now!

 

[SubRosa]

The surest way would be to add a bit of bleach to the water, let it sit 15 mins and then add a bunch of dechlorinator.

 

[BettaFishMommy]

go buy 5 gallon jugs of drinking water from your local grocery store. do water changes with those. might cost a few bucks, but you'll be rest assured that your tanks are E Coli free.

 

[THE V]

E. coli does not pose a risk to your fish. This is a pathogen/symbiotic organism of mammals. Change your water as normal.

 

[stormywendyann]

I am sure glad the V was around.... that is something I never knew.

 

[BettaFishMommy]

although E Coli does not harm fish, i know i wouldn't want to have my hands in a tank that had E coli tainted water in it! hence the reason i suggested using an alternate water source.

 

[lithe]

Right now, I'm boiling tons of water and letting it sit out. I'm not going to have enough to do a water change on my big tank but my smaller tank I will have to do a water change tomorrow for. Hopefully on Monday I can just do a 50% on the large tank. The large one has a new filter so the rise in ammonia makes sense. I had to a huge water change before adding that filter last week due to finishing up parasite treatment. The other tank has high nitrites because its on the tail end of cycling... still not good, of course.

If I were to add bleach, about how much do you think per 5 gallons? I don't want to bleach my fish and kill them. That can't be good for them either, right?

 

[BettaFishMommy]

i would get a bottle of Prime dechlorinator (made by SeaChem). dosing 5x the normal dose will detoxify nitrites for 24 hours. Prime will also detoxify ammonia. not a substitute for water changes, but works in a pinch. petsmart carries Prime. many members here use it and recommend it, including myself.

hoping the water warning is over by monday!

 

[lithe]

I have Prime. That's what I use to treat my water for water changes. I didn't do 5x yet because of the ammoquel but I did double it. Before I go to bed I'll add the rest. My fish seem ok. I stopped feeding them to help back off on the nitrites and ammonia. They are used to eating everyday. Hopefully they don't hate me for it!

 

[Nepherael]

I have Prime. That's what I use to treat my water for water changes. I didn't do 5x yet because of the ammoquel but I did double it. Before I go to bed I'll add the rest. My fish seem ok. I stopped feeding them to help back off on the nitrites and ammonia. They are used to eating everyday. Hopefully they don't hate me for it!

Haha at times when I needed to back off on feeding during cycling and just generally because I probably feed too much I have such a hard time doing it. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I don't know why, I know fish in the wild go days without eating but it just bothers the heck out of me for some reason